How to Hire a Chief Innovation Officer

Braden Kelley is an innovation and change specialist, the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, an InnovationExcellence.com co-Founder, and is the creator of the Change Planning Toolkit™ and a book on the best practices and next practices of organizational change (January 2016 release).

  Governance   Innovation  

Every company begins as the nimble startup, organized around the solution to a single customer problem and executing that solution better than anyone else in the market (including the incumbents with deep pockets).

But at some point, the hunter inevitably becomes the hunted and that nimble startup--as it evolves and scales--eventually becomes that more complex (but capable) incumbent. Inevitably, it finds itself so focused on capturing all of the business for its existing solutions, that it finds itself at risk of missing the next evolution in customer needs.

The companies that last the longest manage to fulfill existing customer needs with well-delivered solutions--and identify new customer needs they can satisfy as customer needs (or wants) continue to evolve. But many companies fail to do so quickly enough, especially in our new reality where it is easier than ever to start and scale a solution around the globe with limited resources. Innovation is the key to remaining relevant with customers. Innovation is the key to remaining alive.

It’s innovate or die, and this new reality leaves all companies focused on Winning the War for Innovation. This quest to win the war for innovation has led many organizations to begin hiring chief innovation officers (CINO), innovation managers, VPs of innovation or innovation directors.

But many organizations have done so in …

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